who will be next president in Iran:

Iranian Journalists

Iranian Blogs

About me

Things haven’t been easy for Arash Sigarchi. At the age of 27, he was sent to prison for writing articles criticizing the leader of the Islamic Republic and aspects of life in Iran. He was first sentenced to 14 years, charged with "insulting Mr. Khamenei in his writings, collaboration with hostile governments, giving interviews to foreign media, and incitement of the public mind." His sentence was subsequently commuted to 3 years, of which he has served 14 months. During his time in prison, he found a lump in his mouth. It was cancer. He underwent an operation to excise the tumor as a result of which he lost part of his tongue.
Sigarchi began his career in journalism when he was just 15 years old. A native of the Gilan province of northern Iran, he gained acclaim for his work as editor of Gilan Emrooz, the province’s major newspaper. When he was no longer able to publish the kind of stories he wanted to in the paper, he decided to start a blog called Panjereh Eltehab, which means “window of anxiety.” For his courage and dedication in the field of journalism in Iran, Arash Sigarchi received the Hellman/Hammett award in 2007.
(from IJNet interview)

Cancer treatment

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

New technology for Democracy

President George W. Bush meets with international bloggers and new media users on human rights Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. White House photo by Chris Greenberg

Today is December 10, and President of United state invited me and some Journalists and blogger from several country. Following text is my speech in With House:

It`s a pleasure to be here as an Iranian journalist and blogger.

As an Iranian person I want to tell you Mr. president, Thank you for always separating Iranian people from Iran`s government.

History is a good science because it tells us that 60 years ago Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, helped to create the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Also, history tells us Five Hundred years before Christ, there was a king in Persian that helped to develop Human rights. Cyrus the Great was a supporter of peace for other countries and he freed the Jews and repatriated them to their region following their Babylonian captivity.

Yes, history also tells us, Now there is a president in the Islamic republic of Iran that said "Israel must be wiped off the map." You can compare these two act together.

Mr. President,

I know you understand that Iranian people have problems with their government. Now I want to tell you about my experience on how I could promote reform despite the government and try to stop it.

I`ve been working as a journalist for over ten years. I started my blog seven years ago, when the Iranian ministry of intelligence pressured me to censor some news.

I wrote articles about Iran’s nuclear energy activity and asking it to stop but they forced me not to publish these articles. Censorship is the worst thing to journalists so I decided to challenge it.

Some other journalists and I use a new technology for the war against censorship. The Style of work was easy. Everything that was impossible to publish in newspapers, we published on weblogs.

After a short time, my blog became famous for reporting real, uncensored news.

Unfortunately, Iran`s government became sure that the Internet and blogging helps spread democracy and for this reason, they started the filtering and persecution of blogs.

They didn’t tell people that everything was being filtering. They told them we filter only immoral sites.

There is a lot of Persecution. They arrested me in 2005 and first sentenced me to 14 years of prison and then in the appeal court reduced it to 3 years. Also, around the same time, the Iranian government arrested more than 45 bloggers and journalists and held them in solitary confinement for a long time.

Now, More than five Millions sites and blogs are filtered in Iran.

In the meantime, Sepah Pasdaran (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) decided to start ten thousand new blogs. A special Magazine of IRGC announced that the US government wants regime change in Iran by using public policy tools like the Internet and blogs.

I want to tell you why blogging is important and why it help to the spread of democracy in Iran.

Iran is the fifth Classification in the world and we have half a million bloggers. They write, take pictures and publish their blogs daily or weekly.

Iran doesn’t like this because my colleagues publish important data. We write about "abuses of human rights in Iran", "Iran`s nuclear activity", "women rights" and other things. I want to tell you a fresh example:

President Ahmadinejad elected Mr. Ali Kordan as "interior ministry of Iran" four months ago. They told us, Ali kordan is "Honorary doctorate in law from Oxford University". Iranian bloggers very soon discovered Ali Kordan doesn’t have this honorary degree. More than twenty thousand blogs wrote that the new minister lied. This wasn’t the end of his case. After a short time, we realized he doesn’t have any degree, either a Masters or a bachelor degree. He only had a simple diploma. Finally, the Iranian Parliament impeached him after ninety days only. That was Success for Iranian blogger community.

Blogging rose in Iran. Now, Iranian student use this technology to publish their activities. Also, most of all women use it. They are involved in the campaign for "one million signatures Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws" and they write about their successes and experiences on blogs.

Before ending my talk, I want to give you some messages from Iranian bloggers. I asked them what they would like to ask the President of the United States. I asked about 45 people Inside Iran. More than 30 persons had the same request. They believe that Iran is buying filtering technology from American and Chinese company. They ask you, please don’t allow American companies to sell such technology to the Iranian government for extending ofg censorship and Filtering..

Another point raised was about supporting democracy in Iran. Iran has a Young population. 70 percent are under the age of 35. Also, 60 percent of Iranian bloggers are under this age. For this reason, they need a new media.

And Finally, They wish to tell you, although Iran’s government supports some terrorist groups, but the Iranian people are not the Axis of evil.